


As the Stars In Their Courses

by LucyLovecraft



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, F/M, Forbidden Love, Friendship/Love, Non-Canon Relationship, Older Characters, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-16 02:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13626387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucyLovecraft/pseuds/LucyLovecraft
Summary: “And so our love’s not a simple thing,Nor our truths unwavering,But like the moon’s pull on the tide,Our fingers touch, our hearts collide;I’ll be a moon’s breath from your side.”





	As the Stars In Their Courses

**Author's Note:**

> Chretien de Troyes came to me in my sleep and said I should write this. This is the single most wholesome, G-rated thing I’ve ever written so I’m dedicating it to Avani and BB because they’re wonderful. (No one should ever have the other fic I’m working on dedicated to them because yikes.)
> 
> Note: RoS doesn’t exist, because ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Gold star to whoever spots the lines "inspired" by Tolkien. If someone can actually identify the poem/song that inspired the last few paragraphs, I will probably write you a fic of your choosing.
> 
> 100% free range, organic, unbeta-ed fic, so **please comment if you spot any typos or errors.** Thank you, friends!  
> 

Kattappa was not a free man. Kattappa was no longer young. But he had found that love knew no master, not even time.  
  
Love had stolen upon him gradually, almost imperceptibly. The years flowed by in their swift succession until one day Kattappa looked up at the Queen Mother Sivagami as she sat in her high seat and Kattappa felt love blossoming open within him, gentle and inevitable as sunrise.  
  
There was no earth-shattering moment of revelation. He had loved her long before this moment: it was only the consciousness of it that was new.  
  
Kattappa let none of his thoughts show on his face. Sivagami was holding court, and he had no time for selfish self-reflection. He paused for only a moment before resuming his ceaseless scanning of the court chamber, back and forth, back and forth, ever watchful for enemies. Duty came foremost. Yet, as he had discovered with Baahu, duty and love might rest in the same place.  
  
When court ended, he watched as Baahu approached his mother’s seat. Only then did Kattappa allow himself the quiet indulgence of watching mother and foster-son. The open, uncomplicated affection on their faces enchanted his heart. The adoration in Baahu’s eyes, the tenderness in Sivagami’s smile: it seemed impossible that such fleeting, fragile things could comprise the very foundation of his soul, yet it was so. Watching them, Kattappa knew that his long life of service was not without merit or meaning.  
  
Sivagami felt his gaze on her with a sixth sense that outpaced any conscious perception. She did not wheel round: she was a politician and a warrior. Masking her movement in a casual adjustment of her garb, she slowly turned her head. The smile for Baahu was still on her lips, but her glance was keen. Then, seeing Kattappa, her posture relaxed.  
  
There was no smile for the slave; that was not who they were to each other. Her esteem showed in an all-but unconscious lowering of those indomitable defences, her dark, lustrous eyes losing something of that hunting-hawk’s intensity. There was no smile for Kattappa, but there was trust.  
  
Joy shattered Kattappa’s heart. It shattered, perished within him, then knit itself together, whole and new with the strength of his new, quiet truth: he truly loved her. He shaped the words in his heart, knowing he could never speak them aloud. He _loved_ , and Kattappa marvelled at how gently but bounteously the gift had been given.  
  
Kattappa bowed in salute, eyes downcast. Sivagami inclined her head, turning back to her son.  
  
The Queen Mother listened to Baahu, but a part of her was puzzled. There had been something unfamiliar in Kattappa’s familiar regard. Sivagami feared no disloyalty, not from steadfast Katappa. Through all the dangers and challenges that had beset her, her sons, and the kingdom, Kattappa had always been there, supporting her in all she did. Indeed, so constant was he that this new thing ought to have disturbed her. Yet she found it did not disturb her. More than that: without fully comprehending what she had seen, she somehow felt she had understood it—even recognised it, though from where she could not say.  
  
Sivagami did not yet know what it meant, but she had not ruled for so long without learning to trust her instincts. She considered, decided upon a course of action, and directed her full attention back on Baahu, concentrating on his closely-reasoned assessment of a proposed land tax. The faint fluttering in her chest was likewise acknowledged, found to be of no immediate importance, and set aside for later scrutiny.  
  


* * *

  
That night Sivagami dismissed her attendants and summoned Kattappa. She waited on a high balcony overlooking the city. It was late, and most of the houses’ windows were dark as their occupants slept. Starlight and moonlight transformed Mahishmati into a world of silver-blue shadow. The night was musical with the song of the midnight world: the buzz of insects, the frogs in the canals, the strident churr of nightjars, and—somewhere nearby—the warbling cry of a wood owl.  
  
Sivagami had always loved the high places of the palace at night. She felt as though she looked down into deep water, suspended above a secret, bustling world. Yet unlike the world of men, the night’s dangers held no malice: its struggles and deaths were pure. Here, at least, was one kingdom she did not need to rule.  
  
“Queen Mother,” Kattappa spoke quietly, as though unwilling to intrude.  
  
Turning from her view of the city, she beckoned for him to approach. The moonlight frosted his hair and hauberk with rime, and she wondered what he would look like when he was old.  
  
_Foolish,_ she thought. _We are both of us grown old. Bhalla and Baahu are men grown._  
  
Kattappa bowed, awaiting her orders.  
  
The Queen Mother did not often ask him to join her alone, so she asked the only question that could justify a private audience: “What do you think of my sons’ progress?”  
  
He responded at once: “They are both powerful warriors, strong in combat and shrewd in thought. You have raised them well.”  
  
Sivagami nodded, her silence anticipating and demanding the “but” which would follow.  
  
“Though I feel that Prince Bhallaladeva delights more in the warrior’s art. He loves the sword for its sharpness, as a good in and of itself, and for the glory it brings.”  
  
“Yes,” she agreed, “rather more, perhaps, than for the people and lands it defends.”  
  
“It is surely as the Queen Mother says,” Kattappa said, bowing again. (Bowed, he did not see the twitch of Sivagami’s lips, nor the amusement in her eyes.) “My lady has raised two sons of whom any kingdom would be justly proud.”  
  
_And you, too,_ she thought, _have raised one whom we both love more dearly than life itself. He bears the mark of your training, and it is a credit to you both._  
  
Sivagami looked at that familiar, bowed head. A few grey hairs showed amongst the black. It seemed only yesterday that he’d stood by her as she made her declaration on Mahismati’s succession. That day was sharp and clear in her memory: herself seated in the throne room with the two infants in her arms, Kattappa with his back to her, standing between her family and danger.  
  
They were both older now, though Kattappa’s arms had lost nothing of their strength. Time had slowed the legendary serpent’s-strike speed that had made him famous in his youth, but still only Bhalla and Baahu could best him, though he was more than twice their age.  
  
How she’d come to rely on this man. In all the quicksilver eddies and currents of court intrigue, Kattappa was constant and immovable as stone. Bijjaladeva called him a dog for that loyal constancy— _her_ dog. The vicious, petty inaccuracy of it irritated her. A dog might be trained to obey, to guard and to protect, and to fulfill its role with affection. But could it truly choose to love as something beyond both duty and instinct, fully and completely, as the free choice of a human soul? Could it love as Kattappa loved?  
  
The thought struck her like a thunderbolt, flashing bright with its own stark truth: Kattappa loved them. He loved Baahu, that she knew. But now, looking at that silent, bent form, Sivagami understood what she had seen on his face in the great hall: Kattappa loved her, too. She had not seen it for what it was, though all the signs now seemed so clear. How _could_ she have recognised it, she who had never known such love?  
  
Yet it came to her now that she had known for years. What they shared between them had simply been so constant that she had hardly noticed, no more than she would have noticed the air she breathed or the earth beneath her feet. And still it was a thing so unique, so staggeringly unlikely that she could hardly begin to grasp its magnitude. Maybe such things could never be fully grasped.  
  
She knew only that here before her was the one man whom she trusted with all her heart.  
  
“Kattappa?”  
  
He remained bowed, eyes down, awaiting the command that would surely follow. Sivagami felt the wild drumming of her heartbeat, felt the utter impossibility of this moment, and—following fast—the swift clarity of purpose and of decision that always guided her.  
  
“Kattappa, look me in the eyes.”  
  
There was no hesitation. He raised his head and met her gaze with his own. Kattappa did not glance away; she had not given him permission to do so. Duty bound him. But he could have tried to conceal his heart, and this he did not do.  
  
Sivagami had not ruled all these years without becoming a shrewd student of human nature. A slave could owe his masters his service, but never his heart’s truth. It was this truth which Kattappa now freely gave. He let his eyes speak for his heart. He looked at her, as she had commanded, but he did not look at Queen Mother Sivagami Devi, Royal Regent of Mahishmati. He looked at Sivagami, herself alone, and his eyes taught her to see him as neither slave nor warrior, but as Kattappa himself.  
  
A dizzying, feverish vision seized Sivagami and she saw the path of another life: a life in which she could have crossed the space between them and taken his hands. She could have lain her hand on his chest, feeling the warmth of a living body through the mail under her palm. Their lips would meet. On him would be the scent of smoke from the smithies, the comfortable smell of the stables, the metallic tang of his hauberk, and the healthy, human sweat of the padded cotton beneath. Sivagami felt her whole life balance on the edge of this moment, felt her body incline towards him of its own accord, remembering all the delights of love of which she’d heard so much but never tasted. Kattappa could take her in his arms, and she would know them. He was a man, and she was a woman, and she would chose him for her own.  
  
Their lives could be their own.  
  
When Mahismati had a king and a commander she could retire to a quiet home in the hills, somewhere where she could watch the rain. To her it seemed no mere vision, because she was there: she could smell the verdant lushness of the forest air, feel the living vibrance and purity that comes after storms, hear the music of water trickling through the eaves.

Somewhere in the house she heard her son’s voices, and the delighted shouts of children—her _grandchildren_.  
  
Smiling, she listened, sitting by Kattappa’s side, watching the wheeling kites soar through shafts of sunlight. As the clouds rolled away, the courtyard filled with light. Kattappa took her hand in his, and she felt the hard calluses of a man who had worked all his life by his hands, but his touch was gentle and familiar. The sun pierced through the clouds, its light turning their white hair to gold, and her heart knew peace.  
  
Then, swift as thought itself, the madness passed.  
  
It was night in the royal palace of Mahishmati. They were alone, but even now Kataappa could not take her hand. There would be no home in the quiet hills. Their fates were not theirs to rule.  
  
Kattappa stood before her, his eyes bright with tears. She knew that he had seen the same, brief vision of what they might have shared. Tears pricked her own eyes.  
  
For once, Sivagami did not force them down or turn away to hide them. There was no shameful weakness in these tears. They were all she could give to him, as a gift freely offered from one loving heart to another, and as a tribute to the life they would not have. Nothing else was hers to give: everything else she owed to her sons and to Mahishmati. She was Queen Mother. She was married. And he was a slave.  
  
There were but a few paces between them, but in that space lay duty, honour and position. They could no more cross that distance than a human soul might bestride eternity.  
  
She was Queen Mother of Mahishmati, and she could not even reach out to brush the tears from his cheek.  
  
There were things that simply could not be. There were paths that could not be taken. There were dreams which could never be more than dreams, and Sivagami knew that this was a world which must be lived in, not dreamt.  
  
But _this_ , this love they shared, this was no dream. The pain she saw in his eyes was as nothing to the respect, the tenderness, and the friendship she saw there. There would be no future paradise, but there was still love, here and now.  
  
For a long time there was stillness and silence, but in that slow stillness they found contentment. They had already shared so much in their lives: so many joys, so many sorrows. Now they shared their pain together and found the burden lessened. More than that, they shared love, and found happiness multiplied. Neither would ask of the other what could not be given. Neither could have loved the other or been worthy of that love, had they asked more. Each knew the other’s heart, and loved all they knew.  
  
Together, they found acceptance, too, of their destinies. They would not demand more than fate could give—indeed, neither would ever have  dared pray for love in the first place.  
  
Sivagami blinked away her tears, and she saw Kattappa’s love for her in the slow, sweet smile as he watched her take up her duty once more. He understood, of course. He had understood her completely, without ever a word spoken between them. That understanding lifted her heart, raising it above either sorrow or regret.  
  
At peace with each other and at peace with fate, they made their silent vows.  
  
Slowly, Sivagami looked away, out over the balcony. The crescent moon hung like a slender bow, high in the sky. She breathed in deep, then let the breath out again in with slow control.  
  
“How bright the moon is tonight,” she said quietly.  
  
“Queen Mother?” Kattappa was too far back; she knew the roof of the balcony must block his view.  
  
“There,” she said, pointing up.  
  
Kattappa stepped closer, just near enough that he could look without stooping to see out beyond the roof. He was perhaps two feet behind her. He did not speak. Instead he simply stood as he always did: a solid presence behind her left shoulder, positioned so he could safely draw his sword while stepping forward to protect her, should danger threaten.  
  
Sivagami did not need to look to know he was there. She felt as though he was the moon, and she the sea: even were it hidden in cloud, the sea felt the moon’s presence. There was peace, too. Sivagami felt none of the terrible, heedless desire of youth impelling her towards him: the sea did not rise in tumult and hurl itself towards the sky. The tides simply rose and fell, ebbing and flowing within their assigned boundaries.  
  
They gazed up at the heavens, listening to the living chorus of a summer night. The constellations wheeled around the Pole Star, never deviating from their appointed paths. The silver river of the Milky Way swept slowly across the sky. The moon followed its eternal course, sailing away into the west. All things moved in stately precision. Yet what an infinity of beauty there was in these rigid, unchanging things.  
  
A falling star streaked across the night sky, and Sivagami thought how piercingly beautiful, too, was the fleeting instant of its passing—a brief, wild break from celestial order. It could change nothing, touch nothing, but its brilliance smote her heart. No one would remember that falling star: no court astrologer would note it, no historian would record its existence. It might as well have never been. But it had been and, for all its transience, it had been no less lovely.  
  
Sivagami did not wish for the stars to fall. She did not ask for more than could be given. They would take what moments they were granted.  
  
They would have love, and that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics which gave the fic its summary are from a schmaltzy Loreena McKennitt song called ["Samain Night"](https://youtu.be/a0TQ4lRZgmw) (pronounced "sowwen", if you care to know that sort of thing). The fic title is lifted without any regard for context whatsoever from the linguistically indefensible yet lyrical King James Version Bible translation of Judges 5:23.


End file.
